You don’t have to wear glit­ter just be­cause it’s De­cem­ber, friend.

In a sea­son gone glitzy, Han­nah John­son at­tempts to stand out.

my name is Han­nah, and I’m a hol­i­day-beauty ad­dict. Ev­ery year as the in­vi­ta­tions be­gin to pour in, up goes the pres­sure to cu­rate a stand­out party look. I’ve al­ways seen this as a time to outdo my­self and take fes­tive beauty risks—ev­ery­thing from vo­lu­mi­nous, wild hair to dark, vampy NARS-painted lips and, of course, a healthy smat­ter­ing of glit­ter.

Ah, glit­ter—the great jewel in the hol­i­day­beauty crown. Sparkle and sheen are syn­ony­mous with “hol­i­day beauty.” Those of us who stick to a neu­tral vibe all year in­evitably splurge on luxe lim­ited-edi­tion pal­ettes that al­ways fea­ture shim­mer­ing night-owl shades (with a shelf life that ends on Jan­uary 1). These of­fer­ings al­lowed me to sparkle as much as the or­na­ments around me, and even if the oc­ca­sional fleck dropped from my lids onto my con­tact lenses, tem­po­rar­ily blur­ring my vi­sion, I still felt as fab­u­lous as the ’70s glam­rock gods I so adore. But as the dec­o­ra­tions were put away and a new year be­gan, I’d say a be­grudg­ing good­bye to the glit­ter and go back to my faith­ful “no-makeup makeup” look un­til the next big yule­tide fete rolled around.

En­ter 2016, a year in which get­ting play­ful with your look has be­come the new norm. The run­way and the real world over­lap more than ever, with the av­er­age makeup lover’s work­week look in­clud­ing pro- level con­tour­ing learned from YouTube, rain­bow hues on eyes and lips and strob­ing that could light up a room. Now that we all look fab­u­lous when there’s no oc­ca­sion at all, how the heck do we top our­selves when party sea­son com­mences?

When it comes to in­flu­enc­ing the masses, the high- fash­ion run­ways are lead­ing the charge: The glit­ter look I used to as­so­ci­ate with “party time” has trick­led into the ev­ery­day. At Burberry’s Bowie-in­spired fall/win­ter 2016 show, lead makeup artist Wendy Rowe dec­o­rated the mod­els with “tears of joy”: pinches of mul­ti­coloured glit­ter dust at the edges of their eyes on an oth­er­wise-bare-look­ing face. Even the boys sported the sparkles, prov­ing that this is an equal-op­por­tu­nity trend. If Burberry, a brand founded in 1856 and known for its clas­sic trench, is telling us to buy and wear glit­ter, does this mean the sparkly stuff has jumped the shark, or is it sim­ply chicer than ever?

Then there’s Pat McGrath, the high priest­ess of mod­ern makeup artistry. Her epony­mous Labs line brings her highly-sought-af­ter run­way looks di­rectly to the cos­met­ics-ob­sessed Mil­len­nial crowd. For Ate­lier Ver­sace’s fall/win­ter col­lec­tion, McGrath coated the lips of mod­els like Bella Ha­did in the finest ver­mil­ion glit­ter, bring­ing to mind Dorothy’s ruby-red slip­pers. Her In­sta­gram fans went wild for the look—and even more so when McGrath an­nounced that her third Labs launch would be a lip kit made for the show. When the kit launched, it im­me­di­ately sold out at Sephora and tem­po­rar­ily crashed McGrath’s web­site. While it may seem like glit­ter is ev­ery­where, those who were able to snatch up the lim­ited-edi­tion kit are now mem­bers of an ex­clu­sive be­daz­zled club.

But has glit­ter reached fever pitch? While ev­ery­day sparkle may take away from the small thrill of spe­cial-oc­ca­sion glitz, the mag­pie in me is happy to see shim­mer front and cen­tre. In a world that can some­times feel dreary and gloomy, I’ll hap­pily adorn my­self with Burberry-es­que tears of joy. And whether you re­serve your twin­kling mo­ment for a New Year’s Eve shindig or sim­ply for a Mon­day morn­ing that could use a bit of bright­en­ing, all I can say is this: Shine on. n